Hoping to get Apple gear this holiday? You might want to act fast

If you’re planning to buy an Apple product for a loved one this Christmas, you may want to start your shopping sooner than usual, because a perfect storm of logistical problems is likely to cause severe delays across the holiday season.

In a detailed exploration of the factors, AppleInsider reports that Apple faces “giant challenges” marshalling its supply chain over the coming months. This could mean another delay-stricken Christmas, following problems in 2021 and, to a lesser extent, 2022.

As in 2021, multiple factors are combining to give Apple headaches–several of them, we should stress, causing far more serious harm to affected parties than merely slowing the distribution of smartphones. Hurricane Helene, for instance, has caused the closure of a quartz mine which is crucial to Apple’s semiconductor supply. A factory in India has been destroyed by fire, necessitating a shift in manufacturing.

Dock workers in the U.S. have gone on strike, and this will have more effect than it would in previous years because of Apple’s push to become carbon neutral and use ocean shipping instead of air where possible. And worldwide economic conditions are uncertain, which could reduce the appetite for new iPhones (and ironically help Apple to cope with demand) but may also hamstring the company’s funding.

Just one of these factors would make life difficult over the notoriously demanding holiday shopping period, which Apple’s product launch calendar is built around. But all of them together almost certainly means stock shortages and shipping delays. So it’s probably wise to buy sooner than later if you want an iPhone in time for Christmas.